HOBART — For the last five years, a group of Hobart business members have worked hard to support each other, and to encourage businesses to work together for the improvement of the village and surrounding area. Now they would like to widen their mission to include interested village residents who, although they do not have a business in town, want to help the community to shine.
In 2005, Don Dales of Hobart invited his friends and neighbors to join him in a new and imaginative endeavor, one he called “The Book Village of the Catskills.” Based on Hay-on-Wye’s “town of books” in Wales, with a sly nod towards novelist Larry McMurtry’s legendary bibliophile’s retreat in Archer, Texas, Dales hoped that creating a “book village” would help restart this small, rural community’s, population 388, economic and cultural heart. Bill and Diana Adams had already opened their bookstore in 2003, so Dales opened two bookstores in his vacant store fronts. He passed those on to other people and proceeded to open more, and, over the years, the village became seven bookstores.
Dales, a key figure in transforming Hobart, New York, into the Hobart Book Village started with an idea: Hobart was a “ghost town” when Dales, a retired piano teacher and furniture restorer, moved to the village in 1999. In a quixotic effort to revitalize the village, he bought several empty storefronts and offered businesses a year’s free rent.
Dales invited others to join him in this new endeavor, The Hobart Business Alliance. As the founder & leader, he set aside one evening a month, at his home, so there would be a forum for discussions. Barbara Balliet (Blenheim Hill Books, Kathy Duyer (Creative Corner Books) , Andrew Flach (Hatherleigh Press) & Kim Whritner (The Sheep's Nest) were early leaders of the effort.
Dales invited others to join him in this new endeavor. As the founder & leader, he set aside one evening a month, at his home, so there would be a forum for discussions. Barbara Balliet (Blenheim Hill Books, Andrew Flach (Hatherleigh Press) & Kim Whritner (The Sheep's Nest) were early leaders of the effort. Eventually, he opened his own bookstore, Mysteries and More, specializing in mysteries and science fiction.
“The Book Village was a loosely formed organization whose mission was to collectively support the 8 bookstores in Hobart,” says Don Thomases, President of the Hobart Business Alliance. “Don Dales felt that the village needed to expand the scope of that group to include other local businesses. The Sheep's Nest, Second Wind Antiques, Cellar Door Wines, and Hatherleigh Press would join the existing bookstores to explore ways to improve the business climate.
According to Kathy Duyer, owner of Creative Corner Books and New York Books & Ephemera, and a Hobart Business Alliance principal, the purpose of the Business Alliance was to support businesses in the village, and to get the businesses to work together for the improvement of the village and surrounding area.
“My husband and I moved to Hobart in October 2014,” says Kathy, a retired attorney from Maryland. “For a couple of years, we had been looking for an area in which to retire. We were living in the suburbs of Washington DC, and we did not want to stay any more. Too crowded, too busy, too expensive, too much traffic, too hot and humid in the summer. We had visited the Catskills a couple of times in the past, always in the spring or summer, and we liked it.”
The Duyers visited Hobart again in February when heavy snow blanketed the ground to look at houses they had seen listed online. “On a Sunday morning, we drove into Hobart on Route 10 and saw the sign for the Book Village of the Catskills. My husband and I were intrigued – we both love to read and to roam through bookstores. We kept our appointment to see a house and fell in love with the old Victorian. After our appointment, we walked down Main Street. We met Bill and Diana Adams at Adams’ Antiquarian Bookstore and told them we were considering